Come-muse a little moment here,
Faith watches at the grave;

Bid hence all doubt, distrust, or fear,
He can, and He will save!

We tune our harps, and wait awhile;

Joy in the radiance of his smile;

Listening with holy longing till He come,

Knock at our chamber-door, and call us to our home!

10

S. GENEVIEVE.

THE BUST OF VOLTAIRE IN THE VAULTS BELOW.

THE WICKED SHALL BE SILENT IN DARKNESS.-1 SAM. II. 9.

Is this thine heav'n, vain boaster of an hour!

Whose god was reason, and whose breath man's praise?
Could he not frame for thee some fitting bower,

Or she new gild the future with her rays?
Ah! well may earth a darksome cell provide,

For him who wooed oblivion as a bride;

Who, dreading hell, without one hope of bliss,
Chose, and bade others choose, a Paradise like this!

Silence-unchecked save by the slow dull plash,
From off the weeping wall-or distant roar,
As when the waves of ocean rolling dash
Their crested foam along the sandy shore:
Darkness-unlit save by the glimmering ray
This furtive taper gathers from the day-

Is this,-poor wretch! thus swathed in ceaseless gloom,-
The heav'n of thy choice? 'tis not the heav'n of thy doom!

Lift high the lamp, and let the pallid light
Give a brief being to these features wan—

Fit type of Reason's beam mid Nature's night,
Which gleams, but warms not; gilds, but laughs at man!
Pale is his cheek-his brow all worn with care,

As tho' his evil thoughts still nestled there-
While his lip quivers, as it fain would pray,

But nourished hate and scorn chase words of fear away!

Art thou not happy yet? What would'st thou more,
Than the blank nothingness thy fancy framed:
Would'st thou step out upon some firm-built shore,
And hail the being now that zealots named?
Art thou not happy yet? Hath reason fled;
Hath praise no offering for the earless dead?

Hath thy breath failed thee, is thine idol gone ?

O fool! who fad'st, ere fade the laurels thou hast won!

Would'st thou now live? Thou shalt! for life is thine
And immortality, but life in death-

Where suns of blessing never rise to shine,

Nor gales of mercy cheer the gasping breath.

O who can batten on his Maker's ire,

Or make his bed amid devouring fire,1

When all of sin and death, thou dared'st thy jest,

Shall spread thy couch of woe, and bless thee to thy rest!

1 Isaiah xxxiii. 14.

12

S. GENEVIEVE.

Would'st thou be free? Thou shalt! yet not to mock
Thy Maker, but to writhe beneath His frown!
These prison-vaults must rend before the shock

That robs thy lord of his usurped crown!

Then shalt thou rise, who scorn'st Christ's wreath of thorn,

Rise to a dread eternity of scorn!

Bound to God's wrath-from hope of mercy free!

Than thus to be God's foe, Ah better not to be!1

Matt. xxvi. 24.

13

THE FOREST OF FONTAINEBLEAU.

WE MUST NEEDS DIE, AND ARE AS WATER SPILT ON THE GROUND, WHICH CANNOT BE GATHERED UP AGAIN; YET DOTH HE DEVISE MEANS, THAT HIS BANISHED BE NOT EXPELLED FROM HIM.-2 SAM. XIV. 14.

NIGHT greets the parting day,

And o'er the waste his dewy mantle sheds,
While FONTAINEBLEAU her wings of forest spreads,
As tho' to block our way;

Then opes a path—and bids each tow'ring crest,
Nod a rude welcome to her shadowy breast.

Lo! 'neath the brow of night,

Innumerable trunks in deepest shade,

Like giant-hosts in battle-field arrayed,
Pass swiftly from our sight;

While each to heav'n his leafy frontlet rears,

And sways his lordly boughs, and tells of other years.